Taunton students get inventive at annual Curiosity Factory convention

Charles Winokoor Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter @cwinokoor

Sunday

Jan 15, 2017 at 8:38 PMJan 15, 2017 at 9:34 PM

TAUNTON — Although they’re still maturing, some of the inventions offered up by a group of boys and girls in the Elizabeth Pole School auditorium on Saturday surely would challenge many an adult brain.

The number of participants for the third annual Curiosity Factory Invention Convention competition jumped from 46 a year ago to 76 this past weekend, according to Betsy Rabel, director of the registered nonprofit Curiosity Factory.

Some of the inventions and creations were deceptively simple and stemmed from personal experience.

Joshua Cohen, for example, says it’s his job at home to make sure the fire hydrant outside remains clear of snow.

“Every year I’m the one who shovels the hydrant,” he said.

The 11-year-old Friedman Middle School fifth-grader came up with what he thinks is a solution: a barrel or cone-type cover that fully protects a hydrant from snow, thus ensuring easy access to firefighters responding to a fire emergency.

The lift-off handle also could potentially alleviate some of the burden for snow shovelers like himself.

“Pull it up, and you’ve got a perfect hydrant,” he said.

A significant number of the adults assigned to judge Saturday’s competition liked his concept: Cohen garnered enough votes to take home a trophy for second place in his school-grade category.

Cohen also won the new Mayor’s Future Community Innovator Award — which is given to a youthful inventor whose product has the potential of benefiting the city.

“I think it’s tremendous,” said Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr., who praised Rabel for her efforts in promoting and organizing the event.

Hoye stressed that participants don’t get extra academic credits or better classroom grades by competing in the event: “They do it on their own initiative,” he said.

Children in grades one through six have competed each year in the Invention Convention.

Taunton School Committee member Cathal O’Brien was enjoying the view — as he stood amid rows of inventions ranging from a plastic feeder that keeps track of how much food your pet guinea pig has eaten to a mobile-phone, portable pocket.

“This is what you need to do,” an approving O’Brien said.

The former Taunton Department of Public Works water supervisor, who two years ago accepted the position of supervisor for the Dighton Water District, said he knows firsthand how difficult it can be finding qualified people with requisite technical skills.

“We can’t get enough licensed (water supply) operators — they just don’t exist,” O’Brien said, citing an example he says affects water districts throughout the state.

It’s those type of hands-on jobs, he said, that can’t be outsourced to Texas or India.

O’Brien said “project-based learning” endeavors like Saturday’s science-project competition — as opposed to relying strictly on results of standardized testing like MCAS and PARC — increases the odds of students achieving professional goals.

He hopes more young students get interested in science or a related field of study, which can lead to a well-paying career that just might provide a valuable service to a municipality.

“These are the kids, right here,” O’Brien, 44, said.

Sean O’Brien’s (no relation to Cathal) invention was arguably one of the more esoteric offerings of the day.

The 10-year-old fifth-grader at Martin Middle School wanted to find a way to speed up the process whereby pennies are oxidized.

O’Brien’s novel solution was to clamp a wire from an electrical supply — in this case a small, Radio Shack voltage generator — to a penny inserted into the flesh of a lemon.

Rabel, who works as a state police forensic scientist, said her nonprofit group has received an average of $1,300 in grant funding each year from the Taunton Cultural Council.

The money, she said, is used to pay for award medals and ribbons, as well as journals and folders for the students and an interactive science display that each year is set up next door in the gym.

This year $141 in cash was raffled off with another $141 being allotted for next year’s expenses.

First-grade student Kingston Maxi, who was runner-up in his school-grade classification, also took this year’s Inventor’s Choice Award, a peer-based award based on the voting of all those competing in the Invention Convention.

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